Where to stash the puny humans

Most of my writing happens when the kiddos are tucked under their comfy blankets dreaming about fuzzy puppies, sprinkle-covered ice cream cones, and dump trucks. Actually, those are Preschooler in Chief’s dreams. I imagine that Baby in Chief’s dreams are more simplistic: his favorite boob, his favorite position for nursing on his favorite boob, and how much fun it is to chomp on his favorite boob with his new tooth.

But it has come to my attention that there is more to creating a book than just the writing part. It seems that there is quite a bit of other stuff. Father in Chief stopped by the local library yesterday and picked up a few tattered how-to manuals on getting a book published. The take-away is this: there is a lot of work to do. I feel confident in my abilities to get the actual writing part of the book done. But writing a book is just one tiny part. It may very well be the easy part, as far as I’m concerned.

All that other stuff… the market research, the queries, the proposals, agents, the back and forth, well, it’s a bit daunting. Especially since much of it involves doing stuff during the day when I’m busy with my full-time job—parenting. Some of that other stuff will require that I go out during daylight hours. It means that I need to do something with those kids. This isn’t 1975, and so it is no longer acceptable to leave the kids locked in the car for extended periods of time, even if the windows are cracked open for fresh air. It is not acceptable to leave them at home alone while they are napping. And it is not acceptable to put duct tape over their question-filled mouths while I sip a frothy latte at the bookstore. Ahem, I mean while I conduct serious research. While I thumb through the titles at the bookstore—titles that have nothing to do with fuzzy puppies, sprinkle-covered ice cream cones, and dump trucks.

I’m sure Baby in Chief would tolerate my research for about 15 minutes while he amuzed himself with his hands, but then he’d want me to actually interact with him. And that would never do. I need to be able to do this work unencumbered by the puny humans in my life. So a small mental setback while I figure out where to stash them for a couple hours a week. I want to work on all the pieces needed to successfully publish my book, not just the easy part. Sure I can and will do some of the research online, but the bookstore is a good place to be when you aspire to have some of your work there someday, as I do.